Replication Files for "Who Participates in Local Government? Evidence from Meeting Minutes"

The files included here partially replicate the results of the article. While the code is complete for the full analysis, some of the data is excluded due to data use agreements and to preserve commenter confidentiality.

1) Voter File: we used a Massachusetts voter file (dated August 9, 2017) purchased from Nation Builder to match commenters to voter records and to compare commenters to non-commenters. We are unable to include the complete voter file with the replication data. This file is required to replicate Tables 2 and 3.

2) Commenter names and addresses: while we collected the names and addresses of all commenters in the meeting minutes, the replication files (all_comments_anon.dta and comments_merged_anon.dta) are anonymized. While these meeting minutes are public, many are in PDFs and other non-searchable formats, such that the commenter names are unlikely to show up in internet searches. To maintain this level of privacy, we exclude names and addresses from our public replication files. However, the file comments_merged_anon.dta includes relevant demographic variables merged from the voter file (age, gender, party, etc.). Researchers interested in using the full commenter data with names and addresses should contact Maxwell Palmer (mbpalmer@bu.edu).

Code Files:
	- zoning_participation_main_analysis.do
		- Stata file that produces the main results (Table 2, 3, 4, and A2)
		- The file cannot be fully run, the data for Tables 2 and 3 is not public.
		- The code for Tables 4 and A2 will run.
	- zoning_participation_graphs.R
		- R file used only for making graphs.
		- Produced Figures 1, 2, and 3.
		
Data Files (all in Stata format):
	- all_comments_anon.dta
		- All of the meeting comments we collected, coded by commenter position and reasons given. Names and addresses removed to preserve anonymity.
	- comments_merged_anon.dta
		- Anonymized meeting comments for commenters matched to the voter file. Includes demographic data from the voter file, but commenter names and addresses are excluded. Used for Table 4.
	- town_40b_support_comments.dta
		- Town-level file with number of comments by position and results from the 2010 Chapter 40B referendum. Used for Figures 1 and 2.
	- reasons_by_comment.dta
		- Comments coded by reasons and commenter position. Used for Figure 3 and Table A2.
	- reasons_codes.dta
		- Codebook for reason codes in comments files.
		